Committee members say Donald Trump will define RNC platform for 2024

(WASHINGTON) — The GOP’s first new platform since 2016 will also be the first to be truly shaped by former President Donald Trump, say Republicans who served on the platform committee.

According to party veterans, then-candidate Trump left the drafting of the document to party officials in 2016.

In 2020, the GOP refrained from introducing a new platform, simply appending an updated introduction to the same platform from Trump’s first campaign. Now, several veterans of the platform committee predict that the document to be unveiled at the RNC convention in two weeks will reflect a Republican Party united behind the person and policies of Donald Trump.

“I think the dynamic between then and now is completely different,” said Tom Schreibel, a member of the Wisconsin Republican Party National Committee and chairman of a subcommittee on the party’s platform in 2016.

“The campaign didn’t have that much influence back then,” said Schreibel, who sits on the organizing committee for the 2024 convention, which will be held in his home state’s capital, Milwaukee. “We spent weeks working with House and Senate staff to get their views on what was happening.”

“What issues were sensitive for the House? What issues were sensitive for the Senate? How far had the conferences progressed at that point? And what was the art of the possible?” Schreibel said, recalling the considerations he had weighed.

James Bopp Jr., an Indiana lawyer who served on every program committee from 2000 to 2016, called the process that led to the former president’s first program “quite unusual.”

“The Trump campaign team explicitly and widely stated that it would be very cautious in developing the 2016 election program and would leave implementation to the election program committee and the delegates,” said Bopp.

While that platform clearly bore Trump’s signature, it also included positions that were at odds with the former president’s. It veered to the right of Trump on LGBTQ+ issues and reaffirmed a definition of marriage as a strict union between a man and a woman that religious conservatives had fought for. And at the convention, then-Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort successfully lobbied to water down the platform’s support for Ukraine – a change that Trump later said he had neither been involved in nor known about.

This year, Trump may not be able to say the same.

“I expect this will be Trump’s agenda,” said Jesse Law, who served on the programming committee in 2016 and resumed his role this year. “I expect the committee members to join him.”

Schreibel agreed, saying, “As a former president, Trump has gained control of the Republican Party.”

However, Schreibel, Law and Bopp each made a version of the same argument: This program will not be Trump’s because Trump has hijacked the program process—this program will be Trump’s because Trump has united the party behind him.

“If you look at 50 states and on average 70 percent of the parties in all states and at all district levels are pro-Trump in this way, then you will see this in the composition of the delegates,” says Law, who serves as chairman of the Republican Party in Clark County, Nevada.

Law contrasted this dynamic with the 2016 convention, where “the Bible Belt was there, the people from the Northeast, the people from the Midwest and the people from the West Coast.”

“We didn’t have much cohesion,” he added.

To support Law’s argument, ABC News reviewed RNC programming committee membership lists that show that only 12 members of the 2024 committee also served on the committee in 2016 – less than 15% of the total. An ABC News analysis concludes that this number is consistent with the turnover between 2012 and 2016, but shows that the 2024 program will be shaped by a new generation of party leadership.

The three chairmen of the Committee for the 2024 Platform, who are already working with political staff on the drafts weeks before the party conference, which the expanded committee will then discuss, also come from Trump’s circle.

Two of them – Randy Evans and Russ Vought – served in the Trump administration, as ambassador to Luxembourg and director of the Office of Management and Budget, respectively. The third platform leader, Ed Martin, held no role in the Trump administration but marched to the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, and became a prominent figure in the “Stop the Steal” movement, which promotes the false theory that Trump won the 2020 election.

Schreibel pointed to a similar dynamic in congressional considerations that affect the program, noting that “questions about X, Y or Z in the House and Senate are influenced by President Trump and his ideals.”

And because Trump was relatively new to politics in 2016, Schreibel said, he was less familiar with the process. That meant there were “a lot of people at the table” working on plans for the transition and the administration.

One area where Trump’s influence on the party platform could make a decisive difference is the polarizing issue of abortion rights.

Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022 and ruled that there is no constitutional right to abortion, nearly two dozen states have banned or severely restricted access to abortion. This spate of state-level restrictions has become politically toxic for Republicans nationally, as Democrats have made it a central campaign issue and attacked Republicans as extreme on the issue.

Just a year ago, Trump — who appointed the conservative justices who allowed Roe to be overturned — readily took credit for the decision, writing in a post on Truth Social, “I was able to overturn Roe v. Wade.” More recently, however, the former president has struck a more muted tone, saying he would not sign a national abortion ban and emphasizing his support for leaving the issue to the states.

Trump’s reticence – along with news that the 2024 program will be much shorter than usual – has fueled speculation that the document may only briefly address the issue, drawing criticism from some anti-abortion groups. The New York Times has reported that a coalition of advocacy groups sent a letter to Trump urging him to “make clear that you do not intend to weaken the pro-life criteria.”

But veterans of the platform committee who spoke to ABC News appeared largely unconcerned.

Bopp, who told ABC News he has played a major role in advocating anti-abortion rights provisions in the party since 1980, said of Trump’s stance on abortion: “I support it completely, 100 percent. I think he’s absolutely right that the focus should be on the states.”

“There are no votes for a national, substantive abortion law,” Bopp said. “We should not be confused with Don Quixote – and I never have been.”

For Law, Trump’s stance on abortion in the first presidential debate was a harbinger of the platform’s approach: “His comments yesterday were very precise. I expected that.”

“The majority of Republicans agree with that,” Law added.

During his debate with President Joe Biden, Trump said he would not block access to the abortion pill mifepristone and stressed that states should decide the scope of abortion rights, with exceptions in cases of rape, incest and endangering the life of the mother.

Although the 2024 manifesto gives the impression that the party is being redesigned in Trump’s image, party committee veterans interviewed by ABC News stressed that it will remain, at least in part, a document that takes into account the needs of the party as a whole.

“This document is something that a lot of members are working on and thinking about. It’s important to make sure that all parts of the Republican Party are heard and that we’re hearing from the leadership – the elected leadership of the party,” said Arkansas Lieutenant Governor Leslie Rutledge, who chaired a subcommittee on the party platform in 2016. “It will reflect the Republican Party as a whole.”

“President Trump is the leader of the Republican Party and will therefore have more influence on what is said,” Schreibel reiterated. “But at the end of the day, this document has to represent the members of the House of Representatives and also the members of the Senate.”

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